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Loads for 6" Tin Gondola (return to top)
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I like my 6" tin gondolas! They are pretty and, unlike box cars, the gondolas
can really carry freight.
Oil Barrel
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I have nice wooden "oil barrels" that fit nicely on their
sides in the gondolas, five per car. However, five barrels makes for a heavy car, and
a train of even two of these gondola loads is sometimes just too heavy for a lightweight
locomotive and 27" turns. When I saw on Walt Hiteshew's
Marxtin site that
Marx used to offer similar barrels to be used three per gondola, I set about designing
a paper insert to allow me to carry three barrels in each car instead of five.
Here are some photos of the results:
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I have saved my design as a 270kb PDF file. Print it out on 8-1/2" x 11" card stock, and
make two inserts. Download the file.
Here is a photo of the genuine Marx "Railroad
Oil Barrels with Rack" set with a good photo of the wooden rack. (This photo was found on an eBay
auction. This item sold for a whopping $157.50!) There is another photo and description of the
genuine Marx "Railroad Oil Barrels with Rack" on Walt Hiteshew's Marxtin.
My barrels are just about 1.5" tall and were purchased from a vendor at a Great American Train Show.
Wooden Crates
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The crates available here make good loads when printed at 125%.
Custom Billboards (return to top)
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I have a pair of billboard frames that came with Road Champs vehicles. I use
Microsoft Word and graphics gleaned from the Internet to design and print my own
billboards to put in these frames to suit my whimsy. Currently, these frames contain a
tongue-in-cheek billboard featuring the vintage electric power industry mascot
"Reddy Kilowatt" (photo) and a billboard for
"Dinoland" (photo) so I can have an excuse to put
my children's plastic dinosaurs on a corner of the layout. Similarly, I have
scanned and re-printed the billboard from the #151 "34 Piece Railroad and Village
Construction Set" and mounted it into a Marx or Plasticville--I don't know which it
is--billboard frame (photo).
Convert Sliding Tab-and-Slot Coupler to Riveted (return to top)
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I haven't found a source for replacement sliding tab-and-slot couplers, and it seems
that many otherwise nice cars have lost their sliding couplers over the years. I have, however,
successfully converted these cars to the replacement riveted couplers that are available from
The Robert Grossman Company. Remove the
body and wheels from the car in question. Using finger-pressure, bend the coupler tab
down so that it is nearly flush with the deck of the frame. Using a small hammer,
carefully hammer the tab flat. Drill the center of slot out with a 1/8" bit to
accomodate the rivet, and rivet the new coupler in.
Uncoupling Track Sections (return to top)
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Except for the two that are installed on my layout, all of my Marx uncoupling track sections
were rusty and crummy. I found that I could press the the uncoupler bit out of the rusty Marx
track section, using just finger pressure, and press it into a fresh piece of Lionel O-27 track.
Viola! A shiny new-looking uncoupling track section!
Securing Vintage Accessories to Layout (return to top)
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I don't like to drill holes in vintage tin buildings or accessories,
yet want them secured to the layout for protection against the children
and cats. What I have found that works well for most pieces is to
use a nylon wire tie. Simply slip the wire tie through an existing
hole in the accessory and through a hole in the layout and then mate
a second wire tie to the first under the layout. It's easier to do
than to describe--here is a drawing.
I have used this technique to secure my #413a Switchman's Tower,
#438 crossing gates, and #314 crossbuck to the layout.
The #74 lamp posts have holes in their bases but these holes
are too small for either screws or wire tires. For these, I have drilled
matching holes in the layout and use a "U" of wire to secure to the
lampost. See a drawing. The nice
thing about this technique is that the wire is stiff enough to hold
the lamp vertical but if the lamp is bumped, the wire releases the
lamp so that the lamp isn't broken.
The Girard Whistling Station lacks holes on the base. To secure this
to the layout, I drilled holes in the layout and lashed the station
down using shoestring over the base. It's not terribly pretty but I
don't need to worry that the station will be knocked off onto the
hard concrete floor. (At some point I will remove the roof to see
if there are any existing holes suitable for the wire-tie method
described above.)
New Bodies for 8-wheel Plastic Boxcars & Cabooses (return to top)
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The K-Line series 5100-series and the new "Keystone Classics" boxcar
bodies are made from the original Marx mold and fit onto the 8-wheel
boxcar frames perfectly.
I have read that one can cut the trucks off of four-wheel plastic
cars and the resulting shell will fit perfectly onto the frames of
eight-wheel medium-weight boxcars--the slots and screw holes required
to mount the body onto the eight-wheel frame already exist on the
four-wheel plastic boxcar bodies. Similarly, the four-wheel
plastic caboose bodies can be made to fit onto the eight-wheel
caboose frames. I have not tried this myself, but just might
try to find a white four-wheel plastic 467110 B&O boxcar to convert
to eight-wheel to have white B&O boxcar to use along with my blue,
red, and orange ones.
Smoke Fluid for Smoking Locomotives (return to top)
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It is my experience that Lionel-brand smoke fluid doesn't work well in
Marx smoke units. I have read that the Lionel vapor temperature is too
high. I have had good success using Bachmann's product. I have read
that others have had success with LGB, Life-Like, K-Line, and Suethe
products. Apparently, "Super Smoke" from Barts Pneumatics smells just
like the genuine Marx smoke fluid. Some modelers use lamp oil, which is
available in various scents.
Stripping Lithography (return to top)
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To strip lithography off of 6" tin in preparation for custom paint,
I remove the body from the frame and boil the pieces in water
with a bit of dishwasher powder. The ink that doesn't fall off is
easily scraped off with a plastic brush. After rinsing off the old
ink residue and soap, I dry the pieces in the oven at about 200
degrees. This technique has worked well for me.
Magnetic Uncoupling for Marx (return to top)
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Dick Reichard
()
manufactures and sells an adaptor which clips-on (without any modifications) to the truck and renders the fork coupler magnetically operated via any of the in-track electromagnetic uncoupling units. His adaptor does not affect collecting value since is as easily removed as it is installed. He manufactures three styles:
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#L-P for the 0-gauge trucks (D, E, F, and G) with plastic forks
#S-P for the scale trucks (B and C) with plastic forks
#S-M for scale trucks (B and C) with metal forks including NEW Marx
Classic Toy Trains and O Gauge Railroading have done Product Reviews on the Adaptor, both very positive. (CTT-7/97) and (OGR run 169).
Dick sells these for $2.50 per pair or six pairs for $10.00 plus approximately $3.50 for shipping.
Marx Train Gurus can be found on the MarxTrain and Commodore Vanderbilt forums on Yahoo.
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